Do you look like this after a bad beat?

If you have a problem with tilt, you have to try and evolve beyond this big leak in your game. Tilt is the fastest and surest way to dump money, and if you don’t work through it, you will always be a losing player. The best players rarely tilt. Even Phil Hellmuth, who seems to completely lose it, doesn’t throw away his chips after a bad beat or two.

The only way to get beyond this is to know that you’re playing to the best of your abilities and that over time you will be rewarded for your play. No matter how stupid things get against you, you have to realize that suck-outs are part of the game and luck plays a big role in the outcome. You need to find a place in your mind that reminds you that you can’t control results in poker, only how you play.

The late positions in no-limit hold’em give you a big edge over the other players. General rule of thumb is to play the late positions with aggression if there has been no aggression before you. Even with very weak hands you can make a raise from the button position if no other players entered the pot. You attempt to steal the blinds, and if you do get called, you still have good position.

If you have a premium pair you can slow play them in late positions. Perhaps one of the blind positions will make a raise that you can re-raise, and if they don’t, you can trap someone after the flop.

If other players limp in the hand, you can flat-call the blinds with just about any two cards. But, if you face a raise in a late position, you should have a half-decent hand to play.

Leaks in your poker game can take many forms. Some are common, and some will only appear in the odd player. One not-so-common leak is that rare player who calls too many bets with second pair. This is usually an experienced player who has put an opponent on a certain hand, and carefully concluded that their opponent is bluffing. Picking off a bluff is a skill that all good players possess, but this player tries to pick off bluffs that are not there.

Poor value betting is another not-so-common mistake. This player does not make good river bets. They will bet weaker hands from late positions if the action is slow or the pot was orphaned. They should make a very big bet or no bet at all. Instead they make a small bet that essentially tells opponents they have second pair, and get called by that top pair-weak kicker hand.

Beating a loose poker table can be a difficult thing to do. It’s hard to win when numerous players are in the hand all the way to showdown. You’ll usually lose more hands because your winning percentage goes down with all the extra opponents in the hands. This type of situation is ideal when you hit a run of good cards. You’ll win more than usual because there’s so much action out there.

The best approach is to only enter hands with a higher winning percentage. That means tightening up your game and waiting for premium hands in good positions. You’ll still be running a gauntlet to the river, but you won’t be in there too often, dumping chips to lucky fish. When you get the big hands you want to crank the aggression up even more, in an attempt to narrow the field of opponents in the hand.

Theory for beating a loose poker table can be summed up in two words; play tight. If you find yourself at a table where everyone is in every hand, and every street has raises and re-raises, the best thing to do is stay out of the way until you have a premium hand to play. Once you get this premium hand you want to jump in there and be as aggressive as the other players are. You’ll want to force out as many players as you can, so your premium hand gets better odds to win.

Try and limit the hands you play to times when you’re in favorable positions. That will give you the opportunity to see what everyone else is doing before you waste any bets early in a betting round. If you play in poor positions, you’ll just get raised and re-raised when you make a bet.

The 2008 WSOP final table is compiled of nine relatively-unknown players. The player with the most success in their playing career is Ylon Schwartz. He has 30 cashes dating back to 1998, and is only one double through away from the leaders. David Rheem AKA “Chino” is the other established player. He has won over $634,000 and has 15 cashes going back to 2005. He also sits just shy of half the leader’s chips. Kelly Kim has 37 cashes, but has only 2.6 million in chips, compared to the leader’s 26 million.

The leader, Denis Phillips seems to be the player with the least experience, but that doesn’t mean anything in poker. I expect either Rheem or Schwartz to take the lead and control the game to the end. As my dark horse pick I’ll take Scott Montgomery. He has five other cashes totaling over $400,000 since this February.

Entertainer Kanye West is notorious for being a sore loser.

You don’t have to be in a game of holdem very long to come across a sore loser. You know the guy I mean, he takes a bad beat then starts on a rant, berating the play of others or blaming the website, saying it’s rigged and pointing the finger at everything except themselves. There are two ways to deal with these players. First, you can just ignore them; if you’re online you can turn off your chat box, and if you’re live just don’t respond.

The other thing you can do is to feed the fire. If a player starts in on you, you can fire back at them. They are obviously in an uncontrollable emotional state, so feeding the fire will put them even closer to tilting. Every player makes mistakes, point out what they do wrong if they’re being a sore loser.

The hardest habit for online poker players to break is the same as live players. The biggest leak that most players continue to have is tilt. Tilt occurs when a player has a run of bad luck and loses numerous hands in a row. This gets them upset, and they often play poorly because their emotions get the best of them.

The bad streak is unavoidable, but getting angry and making moves that you normally wouldn’t make will cost you bets. The easiest prey on a poker table is a player on tilt. They’re negative and expect to lose every hand, so getting into hands against them is almost always a profitable option.

Learning not to tilt is a lesson that only the calmest players are able to achieve. Some, like Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow, have never learned to control their emotions from getting the best of them.

Doyle Brunson is a living legend at the WSOP

There are plenty of poker players that are over the age of 65. Casinos all over North America are filled with seniors spending their retirement money. Many journey to Vegas each year to try their luck in the biggest poker event of the year. The WSOP has an event just for seniors, and this year there were over 2200 entrants, with the winner taking home over $360,000; minus all the taxes of course.

Poker is a game that can be played well into old age. Doyle Brunson is still one of the best in the world and he’s in his 70’s. Jack Ury is a 95 year old playing in the main event this year, and has survived the first day. He also played last year, if you recall the ESPN coverage. He even has a Full Tilt sponsorship. I hope I don’t have to wait that long to get one.

Picking up tells in online poker is tougher than in a live game. Even delays, which can sometimes be tells, can instead be a connection issue or a delay because that player is playing in multiple games. So these tells are never “for sure reads”, but most of the time you can depend on them. The ‘insta-raise’ is the most common tell. The fast raise usually comes from an inexperienced player with a big hand.

Another one you’ll see a lot is the pause before a bet on the river. This one is supposed to look like the player is unsure if they have the best hand, but they bet out anyway. You’re supposed to think that they’re just bluffing at the pot. This player almost always has a good hand. You’ll see players make this move when they have position, and a card that would complete a draw hits the river.